First responder 'sacked for speeding' while answering 999 call

A life-saving ambulance volunteer has been sacked because he drove too fast to answer a 999 call to a patient who had collapsed and was unable to breathe.

PUBLISHED: 17:01, Wed, Sep 11, 2013

Godfrey Smith (right) with David Hatton, whose life he helped save after suffering heart

Godfrey Smith was a First Responder driving a high visibility ambulance Land Rover but was told he was being dismissed because he drove a 33mph in a 20mph zone.

The stunned 64-year-old - who has been saving lives by being first on the scene of serious incidents for 15 years - said he was told he had lost his job because he had "breached road traffic law."

Bosses at South Central Ambulance Service dismissed Mr Smith after checking instruments in his liveried Land Rover and discovering he had travelled down a shopping street in the centre of Oxford at 13mph faster than he should have done.

The new 20mph speed restriction zones have been much-criticised by local drivers in Oxford who claim they cause traffic jams.

Mr Smith was called by ambulance controllers to go from the Carfax centre in Oxford to the city's St Clements area, to give immediate treatment to a man who had collapsed with breathing problems.

He jumped in his marked SCAS Land Rover and, on his way, pulled up alongside an RAF responder car at the lights by Longwall Street to ask if they were also attending.

He said following the conversation he drove around the bollard to get ahead of the traffic, but that at no point was anybody at risk.

Mr Smith added: "If I thought it was dangerous I wouldn't have done it. There was no traffic coming the other way, the lights were on red." However, following a complaint about his conduct, it was discovered on Mr Smith's satellite navigation system that he was travelling at 33mph in the 20mph zone.

He said today: "I am gobsmacked, it feels like they have ripped my soul out.

"There was no thanks whatsoever for my 15 years of service. The phone hasn't stopped ringing with messages of support. The ambulance service has broken my heart.

"I have shed tears over this. It meant everything."

A spokesman for the ambulance trust said that responders did not have the same rights to break road laws as the drivers of ambulances but it refused to comment on Mr Smith's case specifically.

A letter to Mr Smith from the trust said: "It is felt that your standard of driving on this occasion fell far below that required of someone driving a SCAS marked vehicle."

In June the same ambulance service issued an urgent plea for volunteers after the number of drivers - who completed 19,800 trips in 2012 - dropped from 45 to 28.

Mr Smith, of Faringdon, Oxfordshire, said that the Sat-nav was still reporting the road was a 30mph zone and he was unaware he had broken the speed limit.

"This is a brutal punishment," he said.

"They should have made sure that the mapping in the sat nav we are given is up-to-date."

He has been driving for 46 years and says he always obeys speed limits. He has attended more than 2,000 call-outs and estimates he has saved at least six lives.

He said being a first responder was the "most rewarding thing you can do."

"I have to be at a call within eight minutes and at times that is a long time before any ambulance arrives.

"I can be using a defibrillator on a patient, bagging them and being there for their family as well.

"If there is even a slim chance of saving someone then I am there - at least they will have a chance.

"I get people coming up to me in the street saying 'you saved my child', you helped my mum.

"It is the most rewarding thing someone can do and a privilege to be able to help people."

At least 60 people have signed a petition supporting the sacked man while his son Matthew, 19, has now resigned as a responder in support of his father.

Former patient David Hatton said his life was saved by Mr Smith in 2007 when he collapsed with a heart attack at his Hampden Close, Faringdon home.

Mr Hatton said Mr Smith's use of a defibrillator and CPR kept him alive in the hour before he got to hospital.